Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, I rise this evening to respond to comments made last Thursday by the Minister for Children and Youth in answer to a question I asked about the closure of Ashley Youth Detention Centre. The Minister for Children and Youth’s answer included these words:
I think it is overly simplistic, particularly from people who have been part of this conversation for quite some time now, and you have visited the place and met with the people who are running it, to be fixated on a date for closing a building. This is a far bigger challenge. This is a far bigger set of reforms, and more ambitious and more worthwhile than what your questions would suggest.
I asked a reasonable, necessary, important question and the minister twisted it into an attack, going so far as to suggest my question was somehow wrong because I had visited Ashley Youth Detention Centre and met the people running it.
Responding to a question with an attack is a classic defensive response used by people who are uncomfortable with their actions and behaviours being questioned. It demonstrates elements of what has been defined as DARVO, an acronym that stands for a set of behaviours used to deflect and avoid being held to account. D stands for Deny, A for Attack, and RVO means Reverse the Victim and Offender. These behaviours are designed to avoid being held to account by deflecting and shutting down people who raise concerns.
Now, as well as asking when Ashley Youth Detention Centre will close, the Greens are asking what the minister is trying to draw attention away from. Why is he attacking reasonable questions rather than answering them? And they are reasonable questions. Action on Ashley Youth Detention Centre is essential and any delay is worthy of scrutiny.
To the specifics of the minister’s response, he is correct. At his suggestion, I have visited Ashley Youth Detention Centre and I appreciated being able to see the site, speak briefly with young people and meet with centre managers. I left Ashley troubled and incredibly sad. It struck me that no-one benefits from this centre staying open. Every single person associated with Ashley Youth Detention Centre is negatively impacted. The young people detained there are impacted the most, but staff are working in stressful and, at times, unsafe circumstances. Newly appointed managers are attempting change under both the cloud of the past and the uncertainty of the future – and all of us in this state are stained by the decades of injustices and abuses at Ashley Youth Detention Centre.
Ashley Youth Detention Centre must close as soon as possible to end the damage and draw a line under a shameful period in Tasmanian history.
So to come into this place with questions about the government’s vague, constantly shifting plans to close Ashley Youth Detention Centre is completely appropriate. More than appropriate, it is crucial to ensuring the safety of children. Each of us in this place has a responsibility to make sure the government is doing its job properly; it is our job as the Greens to ask questions, to seek clarity and to push the government forward when it is too slow to act.
This is particularly important when departments are opaque and it is difficult to obtain information. In this, the Minister for Children and Youth has form. Our office wrote to the minister with questions about child safety services in early July. We are yet to receive a reply, despite following up with the minister’s office twice.
The Greens have heard from stakeholders who do not receive briefings from the Minister for Children and Youth. Other stakeholders have shared information with us that does not match what we have been told by the minister, and still others report meetings resulted in no tangible changes or improvements. Stakeholders have told us they are eager, ready and able to do the work to provide support and alternative accommodation to children currently held on remand in Ashley Youth Detention Centre. Meanwhile, the minister has reported many times that he is in the process of consulting with stakeholders. However, there have been no announcements of tangible actions. The best we have been given is the announcement of yet another advisory panel.
Recently, we have seen budget lines listing significant funding over several years for projects that have later been scratched, the Northern Correctional Facility being a case in point. What might seem like solid information is not really solid information at all. There is a pattern here: a consistent pattern of conflicting information, delaying tactics, and limited transparency in multiple areas of the portfolio for children and youth. It is a troubling pattern, given all we know about the urgent need for action, improvement, and transformation that will keep all of our children safe.
That is why we get up in this place and ask questions of the government. They are so loath to reveal what is really going on that we have to ask questions in an effort to gain a basic understanding of what is happening. Tasmanians have a right to know what their government is doing.
The Greens will not stop examining the issue of Ashley Youth Detention Centre and youth justice more broadly. We will not stop interrogating government actions. We will not stop advocating for the urgent work that is needed to ensure all young Tasmanians are safe. We will keep asking the questions that need to be asked and we make no apology for that. Ashley Youth Detention Centre needs to close. Every possible action must be taken now to make it happen as soon as possible.
